The present preferred embodiment relates to reclosable seals for substantially environmentally impermeable, reversible sealing as well as for substantially environmentally impermeable filling and/or decanting of bulk material from containers or tube elements and docking systems containing these reclosable seals.
In addition, the preferred embodiment relates to multiple coupling seals containing the inventive reclosable seals, as well as to multiple docking systems containing these multiple coupling seals.
As a rule very high demands with respect to ongoing reliability and environmental sealing are placed on seals or respectively coupling seals, which are used for decanting of bulk material made of e.g. flexible containers. For many bulk materials in minimal quantities are already toxic for the human organism. In addition, certain bulk materials are very sensitive to air and moisture and must be kept completely separate from surrounding air at every processing stage and naturally also during decanting. Bulk materials for further processing also frequently have to satisfy very high purity criteria and in no way may be contaminated from the outside by any contamination. The necessity to work contamination-free in particular in the food-processing, chemical or pharmaceutical industries results in high equipment and safety-related expense, which inevitably manifests in manufacturing costs.
Bulk material can be decanted for example environmentally impermeably from containers by means of double valve technology, such as described in DE 695 04 581 T2. Such docking mechanisms according to double valve technology are structurally highly intricate and thus generally also costly.
Structurally simpler docking mechanisms, such as those disclosed in PCT/EP02/12010, use e.g. elastically deformable coupling elements, which in each case have a superimposed slot, which is closed in the basic state and can be opened by application of pressure. With this configuration of a docking mechanism particular care is to be exercised that the slots of the juxtaposed coupling elements are of the same length and are superimposed exactly over one another.
The unpublished German patent application with file reference 103 21 814.9 on the other hand discloses a coupling element for environmentally insulated decanting, filling and/or emptying of containers, composed substantially of two flush sealing strips, having at their ends mutually engaging articulated bodies, which can be rotated about common bearing axis elements. The articulated axis elements or respectively articulated caps have to be precisely matched to the shape and size of the bearing element of the sealing strips so as to be able to function permanently and reliably as axis bearings. Opening and closing of this coupling element is accomplished by the opposite articulated bodies being moved towards or respectively away from one another. However, only one limited angle of opening can be achieved with this construction.
For trouble-free operation of conventional docking mechanisms it is not only of significance that the coupling seals of the individual containers in each case can implicitly be closed environmentally impermeably. Rather, it is also of major significance that the coupling seals or elements can be docked problem-free and environmentally impermeably on corresponding coupling elements or seals. This succeeds all the better the smaller and more rigid the individual coupling elements or respectively their constituents, e.g. sealing strips, are. In particular, with structurally simple coupling seals, with large-size coupling seals and with coupling seals formed out of very flexible components, docking onto corresponding coupling seals frequently involves problems, is time-intensive and does not always result in environmentally impermeable docking mechanisms.